San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDA&SM, formerly the San Diego Aerospace Museum) is an aviation and space exploration museum in San Diego, California, United States. The museum is located in Balboa Park and is housed in the former Ford Building, which is listed on the US National Register of Historic Places. SDASM was established by articles of incorporation on October 12, 1961, and opened to the public on February 15, 1963.
Collection
It contains many original and reproductions of historic aircraft and spacecraft, including:
Lockheed A-12 Oxcart
Bowlus SP-1 Paper Wing - replica
Convair YF2Y-1 Sea Dart
Apollo 9 command module Gumdrop
Spirit of St. Louis replica (Spirit 3 was built after the 1978 fire) Curtiss A-1 Triad Montgomery 1911 Evergreen glider General Atomics MQ-1 Predator UAV (tail number 0018) Ryan Firebee Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk (1/2 scale model) 1902 Wright Glider (reproduction) Wright Flyer (reproduction, currently not on display) Vin Fiz Flyer (reproduction) Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk.XVIe North American P-51D Mustang SPAD S.VII.c.1 Nieuport 28 Curtiss JN-4D Jenny North American F-86 Sabre (at Gillespie Field annex) Mitsubishi A6M7 Model 63 Zero Grumman F-14 Tomcat (at Gillespie Field annex) Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (It is in fact a Chinese Shenyang J-5.) McDonnell Douglas F-4S Phantom II Bell AH-1E Cobra PBY-5A Catalina Horten Ho 229 (model) P-26 Peashooter (currently on display) Vought F4U-7 Corsair (currently on display)
SDASM promotes itself as one of the largest aviation museums in the nation, containing the third-largest collection of archives and library. SDASM has two restoration facilities, one on site, and the other located at Gillespie Field. The Gillespie Field Annex is open to the public with numerous aircraft on display outdoors, a Convair SM-65 Atlas ICBM, museum model shop, and a restoration shop. The museum's library contains an extensive collection of aircraft books and historic photographs of aircraft and aircraft manufacturing.
History
The museum was first opened to the public on February 15, 1963, in the Food and Beverage Building, which had been built in 1915 for the Panama–California Exposition. In 1965 the museum was moved to the larger Electrical Building.
On February 22, 1978, the Electrical Building and the museum were destroyed in an arson fire. Several one-of-a-kind aircraft were destroyed, including the Beecraft Wee Bee, the world's lightest aircraft, and her sister craft the Queen Bee. A reproduction of the Spirit of St. Louis, built in 1967 by some of the same people who built the original, was also destroyed, along with more than 50 other aircraft, an extensive collection of artifacts and archives, and the International Aerospace Hall of Fame. Owen Clarke, the museum's executive director, said of the $4 million in losses, "This is unbelievably tragic. When you've spent that length of time acquiring history, building something up to where it had international prestige, then see it all disappear in a couple of hours, what else can it be?"
Before the fire, plans had already been under way to move the museum to the larger Ford Building, also in Balboa Park, which had been built for the 1935-36 California Pacific International Exposition. Even though several important historic aircraft were lost in the fire, much of the collection on display was dated or insignificant. The museum was already accumulating new aircraft that were in storage awaiting space in the new building and so were spared from the fire. In addition, the community rallied, raising funds and donating items from private collections. The museum reopened, with a smaller but growing collection, in its current home in the former Ford Building on June 28, 1980. A new reproduction of the Spirit of St. Louis was built for the new museum. Because of its historical significance, a reproduction of the Wee Bee was also built.
In 2005 the museum became affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. It is one of only ten aerospace museums in the country to have such an affiliation, and one of only two affiliated museums in San Diego.
Exhibits
The museum is divided into many galleries with exhibits emphasizing the contributions San Diego has made to aviation. Sections include the Theodore Gildred Rotunda, Special Exhibit area, World War I Gallery, Golden Age of Flight Gallery, World War II Gallery, and Modern Jet & Space Age Gallery, and the Edwin D. McKeller Pavilion of Flight. Admission is required and there is an additional cost to see the Special Exhibit.
The restoration shop on site is available for tours when work is being done.